Not pushing myself may make it easier for the memories to return.
The fugue state might not be related to the fight with Hugh.
It could, however, be related to what happened in Millerstown. To me. And to Jaycee Long—the little girl I found murdered in the woods so many years ago.
9
As the Uber driver zigzags west and north toward the Central Park–Seventy-Ninth Street transverse, I realize I feel even more wired than I did before the session. Jittery, unable to stop gnawing on my thumb. Or keep a zillion questions from ricocheting in my head.
My agitation, I realize, is due in part to my returning home empty-handed. On some level I’d allowed myself to believe that the session today would be a magic bullet, kick-starting my memory. But as Erling stressed, it might take time for memories to be recovered. Did she mean days? I wonder. Or weeks? I can’t stand the thought of being in the dark for so long.
There’s something else eating at me, too. The memory of Jaycee Long refuses to loosen its grip on me.
It’s not as if I didn’t obtain all the help I needed at the time. I had six months’ worth of weekly sessions with a child psychologist, an intent listener who for some reason always wore a shawl pinned around the shoulders of her blazer.
And it wasn’t as if the bad thing had really happened to me. I was simply a bystander, a nine-year-old who took a shortcut through the woods on her way home from school, kicking at leaves until her foot came into contact with something it shouldn’t have.
The body of a two-year-old toddler whose skull had been fractured.
I swear that for the past couple of decades, I haven’t really thought much about Jaycee. It was only recently that memories of finding her bubbled up in my mind, making me wonder if that early episode was somehow squelching my desire to be a mother.
Since Erling wants to circle back to the topic in our next session, it’s clear to me that she’s also wondering if the experience triggered my fugue state.
My pulse is racing, and I command my mind to go elsewhere. I have to follow Erling’s instructions, do my best to keep stress at bay. That also means giving my brain a chance to recuperate and arrive at the truth at its own pace.
Hugh calls when I’m ten minutes into the ride. “How did it go?”
“Okay, I guess. We weren’t able to trigger any memories, but she gave me a few exercises for stress.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.”
“By the way, I ended up with a good recommendation for a neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian. I made an appointment for midday next Wednesday. I wish it was sooner, but that’s the earliest they could squeeze you in.”
I know Hugh’s banking on this appointment, probably rooting for a physical origin, but as the hours pass, I’m growing more certain that a neurologist won’t turn up a thing.
“I appreciate you doing that,” I say. “What about tonight? Will you be home for dinner?”
“Definitely—and on the early side. And I’ll grab food on the way.”
“Great, thanks.” Navigating a crowded grocery store is exactly the kind of thing I should avoid.
Before dropping my phone into my purse, I do a fast scroll through my in-box. Needless to say, the pileup of emails is growing larger, but most of them can be ignored for the time being. There’s one I do need to deal with—from my podcast intern, Sasha. She says she hopes I’m feeling better, but mostly she’s pressing to meet with me before the next studio session in order to review her research. Will you be going to WorkSpace today? she asks, because if so, I’ll drop by there.
I email back to say I’m working from home, but we can review the research over the phone at around five, which seems easy enough. Her irritating reply, less than sixty seconds later: I have to be on the Upper West Side around that time. Why don’t I drop by your place?
Begrudgingly, I tell her that’s fine. She and Derek Kane seem to be really tight, and I don’t want her to tell her buddy that I’ve been hard to pin down. I wonder, not for the first time, if she and Kane are in a relationship—and that’s why he pushed so hard to have me take on someone with next to zero background in financial reporting.
I look up to see we’re nearing my building. I end up asking the driver to drop me at the deli a half block away, where I pick up a tin of cinnamon Altoids and immediately pop one in my mouth.
Back in my apartment, I dig out my yoga mat from the back of the closet and engage in twenty minutes’ worth of poses in the great room, concentrating fully on each position and doing my best not to let my mind wander. I feel energized when I’m finished, and an espresso also helps. I’m going to get through this crisis, I tell myself. I am.
Inspired, I grab my laptop, answer a batch of emails, and then open the chapter of my book that I worked on last. I’m not that far behind, but it’s definitely time to hustle.
But focusing turns out to be more difficult than I anticipated. Every sentence I manage to type is six words long and totally pedestrian.
Plus, the questions are back, slowly lapping against my brain at first and then flooding it. Where was I for two whole days? Why did I flee my home? Was it really because of the fight with Hugh, or does that terrible day from my childhood still haunt me in some way?
My gaze falls on my old iPhone, lying on the desk. I know Erling said this isn’t the right moment to be talking to Roger about the past, but I’m close to my half brother and I need to bring him up to speed about what’s happened anyway. There’s even a chance, I realize, that I made contact with him when I was gone. I grab the phone and tap his name. The call goes to voice mail, but I know I’ll hear from him soon enough. Rog is like that.
Our father, Ben, had been married to Roger’s mother for nearly twenty years when she died unexpectedly of sepsis. Two years later, he met my mother, Lilly, and they married six months later. According to my mom, Roger and his younger brother, Quinn, fourteen and twelve at the time, were lovely, easygoing boys, who maturely accepted their father’s desire to remarry and embraced her presence—and mine, too, when I brazenly popped up a year later. I adore them both, but it’s Roger who’s always seemed more enchanted by my existence and eager to engage. He was especially caring when my own mother died of cancer seven years ago.
My mother whom I miss and think of every day. My mother who, if she were alive, would surely be able to help me find a path out of this nightmare.
My phone rings and, yup, it’s Roger.
“Hey, Button,” he says, using a nickname my father once bestowed on me for being so buttoned-up about schoolwork. “Nice to hear your voice.”
“Nice to hear yours, too. How is the lord of the manor today?” Roger lives in an impeccably restored manor house along the banks of the Delaware River, a few minutes away from Millerstown, the town where we grew up.
“In fairly good form for a middle-aged man. Is everything okay?”
There’s an urgency to the last question. Had I made contact with him on Tuesday or Wednesday?
“What makes you say that?”
“Something in your voice. And Dad mentioned he hadn’t heard from you in a few days. You’re usually so Johnny-on-the-spot with your calls.”
“I had an issue this week, but I emailed him late last night.”